Political prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket try to get around gambling bans by claiming that their users wager against each other about event outcomes, but they are not gambling.
Even though the mechanics of prediction markets function like sports gambling, there is one key difference. The prediction markets are an open door for insider trading and corruption.
PoliticusUSA is 100% independent and corporate-free. Support us by becoming a subscriber.
Given that it is so easy for people with insider information to cheat and make a profit by betting on outcomes that they know will happen, it is the least surprising thing in the world that the most corrupt presidential administration in at least a century would weaken regulation and enforcement of prediction markets.
People who work for the Trump administration or have access to government information have been suspected of or found to have been cleaning up on the prediction markets, but the corruption is so deep that even Trump’s teleprompter operator has been caught insider trading.
ABC News reported:
Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on that speech and more than a dozen others on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The scheme was petty and showed that the low character of the president is running through his entire administration.
